In His Wake
by Only Sometimes
Summary: When her mother is unable to do so, Ginny takes on the daunting task of planning her brothers wake. One shot, postDH


Hello all. This little one shot popped into my head while I was in the shower, as things often do for some reason, and I couldn't resist. It's a bit dark, but I'm rather fond of it.

And I'm by no means taking a break from the story I've been working on for it, just posting this as extra. Hope you enjoy it, but there's really nothing I can do if you don't, to be perfectly honest.

* * *

This was the feeling of despair, this was the desperate need to make something stop, this was the reality of the post-war Weasleys.

"Mum, please, I'm begging you, go rest! Go to bed, please!" Ginny was on her knees at the her mother's chair where she was working furiously over planning the wake of her son.

"Who's going to do this, Ginny? George? You want me to ask him to plan his twins funeral? I have to, it's my job as a mother!" Molly responded, barely looking up.

"Why does anyone have to do it?" Ginny cried in frustration, flopping against the kitchen wall. She hated this, she hated the burials the ministry was providing for fallen heroes, and she hated the wakes where everyone stood in the same room as the casket, pretending it wasn't their loved one in there. She hated the thought of her brother being in that cold, wooden box.

"I--I can do it, Mum, this is too hard on you, let me do it, it's my job as a sister." Ginny reasoned, slowly looking up from her slumped position.

Molly Weasley set her quill down and sighed. She knew she shouldn't do it, she knew it'd be wrong to put so much pressure on her daughter, but as hard as she tried, she couldn't bring herself to admit that her son was gone and see him off.

"Ginny," she groaned, clamping her eyes shut, "you don't know how hard this is…"

"I do, though, I see what you're going through! Mum, it's killing you!" Ginny pleaded, her eyes threatening to spill over yet again.

"Okay! Okay." Molly cried out, throwing her hands up, "You do it. I need to lie down."

The next morning, Ginny understood what had happened to her mother. It was all consuming, this obsession with making the wake perfect, making it a time to mourn, while still remembering Fred's exuberance, to capture how full of life he was while acknowledging that his life had ended. And George, what to do with the last twin? The more she worked the more she mourned for him, too. It was a horrible reality.

"Ginny," Harry pleaded when he saw her later that day, dark circles under her eyes, "don't do this to yourself, please! Your mum won't get out of bed, your father tries to get her out but he can't, Bill and Fleur are locked away in Shell Cottage, Charlie's trying to help Percy, but he's still inconsolable, please, stop doing this and go to your family! Ron just barely moves, Hermione's at her wits end!"

"I can't," she whispered, "I have to do this, for George."

"George is still alive, although you can't tell, he's still just ghosting through his life."

"Have you seen George cry?"

"Well, no, I haven't, but that's really a more private thing, isn't it--"

"Have you seen him smile?"

"What?"

"George, have you seen him smile?"

"No, of course not. He's mourning."

"But everyone else, everyone else has cried and showed emotion and everyone else has slipped, laughed at some little joke, some fond memory, but nothing makes him smile or cry!"

"I don't understand how his brother's wake is supposed to make him grin, Ginny."

"That's the problem!" Ginny cried out, the sobs that were threatening to break through her carefully built wall already making her body shake, "It has to! He has to accept this, I have to make him see it's okay to live his life! He has to see that's what Fred would want, and I just don't know how!"

Harry wrapped his arms around the small redhead, unable to think of anything to say, and just let her sob against him, wincing as he felt useless. How was it possible to win a bloody war but not be able to recover from the aftermath?

Ginny spent the rest of the day working away, trying to make it so that nothing could possibly go wrong the next day at the wake. She was planning till the very end, desperate for everything to miraculously fall into place and for people to find closure and mourn and remember Fred and realize George was still there.

She trudged up to her own doorway, but stopped, and decided to go up another flight until she was the twins room, just staring into the empty room. Even though the twins had moved out before the war had even begun, it still seemed incredibly empty, so gaunt without them. There were still boxes of experiments around the room, a few scattered items on the floor and burn marks on the walls and ceiling. Even years from now the room would not recover from trying to contain the twins.

Unable to bring herself to disrupt the beds, Ginny curled up into a ball on the floor and stayed for the night.

It was the first light of dawn that awoke her, creeping over her like a hot blanket, pulling her out of the only peace she could have, highlighting her and other various things around the room. She woke up, bleary eyed, and glanced around the room, in slight confusion, following the sun, which highlighted exactly what she needed.

With a wave of relief, Ginny knew what to do at the wake that evening.

"Miss Weezey, we are all very grateful you let us come here! Very, very grateful! We is even given permission to work another post! No punishment for helping Miss Weezey!" a small house elf from Hogwarts kitchen spoke for the handful that was there at the wake. Ginny gave a small smile, ignoring the annoyed Hermione who had already shown her disapproval at the house elves working and not being guests.

Of course, in their own way, they were guests. Thanks to all the years of the twins coming and going as they pleased from the kitchens, the elves had grown quite fond of the boys, as they often did for those who made them useful, and were thrilled to be allowed to work his wake, and be seen. Though it went against what most of them were supposed to believe, and was quite uncharacteristic, they had all wanted to be seen working that day. They all wanted to people to know they were loyal to the "Mr. Fred Weezey" even in death.

"This is all very nice," Neville Longbottom complimented Ginny as she stood with her family and Harry and Hermione. Neville looked much older now that his seventh year was over and was very solemn looking as he popped the food from the tray a house elf was carrying around, not even thinking about it.

Less than two minutes later, after a loud popping noise, a giant bright yellow canary was standing where Neville had just been. Right after him, there was a series of pops, sixteen canaries were standing in the dark room full of people in black, pretending Fred Weasley was not in a box, smiling at them already.

The whole room froze as all eyes zoomed in on Ginny, all were aware that she had planned this event.

"I--I wanted to make sure it was a very Fred event," Ginny explained, mainly to George, who looked completely shocked, his eyes wide and his jaw hanging loose.

Slowly, his jaw came closed and turned upwards, though unwillingly, into a grin, which evolved into a laugh. With that, as people popped back into their normal selves, yellow feathers flying everywhere people started laughing, started talking about the pranks that they had seen the twins pull, telling stories about Fred. The rooms volume rose greatly.

And George laughed so hard that tears poured down his cheeks, until the laughter stopped and the tears did not. Quietly, Ginny sat her brother down on the couch far away from the daunting box that held their brother, and held his head in her lap and let him cry.

She let him cry as people all around continued to talk, she let him cry as she let her own tears fall, and she let him cry so hard that he couldn't choke out any words even if he'd wanted to, and she let him cry as the wake came to an end, and people quietly left, promising to be there the next morning for the burial.

She let George cry so much that he felt as he had finally purged himself of emotion, as if he could no longer hold anything as it had been so much to let out at once. He felt as if he would never cry, never smile, never be anything but completely stoic. He thanked her for what she had done, said it was exactly right, but said it without any emotion.

Ginny didn't accept that as a compliment, she still felt as if she had failed, even though everyone else was so relieved that they had found a way to laugh and remember Fred in such a good light, everyone thought the Canary Creams were just what they needed.

Even as her mother scolded her, the elder Weasley let her eyes crinkle into a smile, and Mr. Weasley had just congratulated her on the whole event, as did her other brothers, even Ron looked more relieved and Percy seemed slightly less flustered.

"You're a lot like them, you know." Percy had told her, "I forgot how much you're like them. You've got the same spirit."

Ginny smiled at that, liking that he had said both of them, not just he lost brother.

The next morning at the burial, George was still feeling as he was completely void, as if he couldn't smile at all. Ginny watched him with careful eyes as friend after friend, relative after relative, left flowers on his brother's grave. Each time he gave a small nod of appreciation, nothing but cordialness came from him.

And then Neville Longbottom, the boy who had fallen victim to the twins pranks countless times through their years at Hogwarts together stepped up and set a bouquet of giant, yellow canary feathers on the grave.

"Just seemed more appropriate." he muttered, walking past the Weasleys, his head down. Neville didn't regret it, and would defend his action till his dying day, but he didn't think he could handle looking at them at that moment.

Everyone watched Neville, or just stared at the bright yellow flowers as they innocently sat. Everyone but Ginny, who watched her one eared brother with intense interest. She saw a small smile appear on his face, despite his best efforts, seconds before he dropped his head to hide it from the family.

George would be all right, even if he couldn't believe it. Not that day, and not the next, but Ginny knew, soon enough, her brother would be okay again.


End file.
